The truth hurts. I mean, it must, because some people will do almost anything to avoid it. And that’s been true for a long time. As Sapien’s author Yuval Noah Harari explains, humans are a post-truth species. “Ever since the stone age, self-reinforcing myths have served to unite human collectives. Indeed, Homo sapiens conquered this planet thanks above all to the unique human ability to create and spread fictions.”

+ For lies to spread, you need a liar (check), and you need people to believe the lies. It turns out, there’s never a shortage of either. The Atlantic’s Ben Yagoda on The Cognitive Biases Tricking Your Brain. “Science suggests we’re hardwired to delude ourselves. Can we do anything about it?”

+ “From vaccines to climate change to genocide, a new age of denialism is upon us. Why have we failed to understand it?” The Guardian: What drives people to reject the truth?

+ You probably don’t need any additional evidence to convince you, but assaulting the truth often pays off, bigly. GQ’s Mari Uyehara on Goop, Trump, and the Lucrative Assault on Truth: “The Goopians largely inflict their anxieties on themselves in frivolous ways, say, emptying their wallets for $500–$4,000 tickets to Goop summits or considering bee-sting therapy, while the Trumpians and right-wing conspiracy theorists inflict them on others in inhumane ones, cheering for the caging of migrant children away from their parents and the harassment of parents of dead Sandy Hook children.”

+ I suppose all of this means that the soundtrack of our lives is I’d Lie For You (And Thats The Truth), by Meat Loaf. (And as if we weren’t already living with enough lies, I heard Meat Loaf isn’t even his real name…)